Secrets of Selkie Bay (11 page)

Of all the things they learned about the selkies, the most important was to always stay together.

 

The Fog

I
ONE WASN'T TALKING ANYMORE.
I sat up, careful not to nudge Neevy. She'd seemed cozy cuddled next to me at first, but it didn't take long for her warmth to turn to heat.

The heat was familiar and fevery.

“Oh no,” I muttered. Our grand voyage to the island was going from poorly planned to insanely stupid.

“Don't you feel it, Cordie?” Ione whispered.

“I don't feel anything,” I said.

“That's what I am talking about. The nothing. The ocean isn't supposed to feel like nothing.”

She was right. The ocean was so, so very calm. Once, when Neevy was a newborn and lay sleeping quietly, Mum had said, “Just watch, Cordie, this is the calm before the storm.” Mum had been paler than usual, her eyes not as dark and bright. She said it was the birth of the baby that always took it out of her. She didn't look like herself at all. But she had been right. Soon after the calm, Neevy exploded into loud cries of hunger.

But now there was no explosive storm, no howling winds that surrounded us, just the silent sea and an eerie blanket of white so thick I could barely see Ione sitting across from me.

“Where's Mum?” Ione asked.

“How should I know?” It took me a moment to realize she was talking about the seal again, of course. But just like the real Mum, the seal was nowhere in sight.

“I'm scared, Cordie. This is creepy. Start the boat. Let's go.”

“And where would we go? I can't see a thing, Ione! How am I supposed to tell which way to go? What if I go the wrong direction and we get lost at sea and never come home? How would you feel about that?”

If you are guessing that Ione burst into tears at this point, you are right. I shouldn't have said what I did, and I shouldn't have said it in a mean voice. Neevy started fussing and I had to hold her and rock her, without rocking the boat much.

“What about Mum? Will she be safe out there?” Ione sobbed, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve, searching the surrounding cloud of white for the silvery-black head of the seal.

I wanted to reach out and hold her, too. But I was afraid to loosen my grip on Neevy. Ione leaned far, far over the edge, straining to find the seal.

“Sit down now!” I yelled.

“But she's right there!” She reached with one arm, out toward where that seal swam, a few meters away from us.

“Why doesn't she come closer? Does she need our help? We have to help her!” she cried.

“That seal doesn't need our help! It's a seal, for crying out loud!” If anyone needed help, it was us—three girls in a boat in the fog, drifting to nowhere. I grabbed hold of the rusty handle, wondering if I should risk starting the motor again. What if I rammed us into a rock? Or another boat?

Please tell me which way to go.
I didn't know if I was begging God or that seal. It really didn't matter, as long as one of them did something. But I couldn't see God, and that seal just stayed right next to us.

“Keep us safe, Mum,” Ione called out. Her earlier bravery had melted away, leaving only sobs.

I'd about had it with Ione and her stupid seal. And the way she could just believe something so easily. Gullible. That's what people who believe anything are called. Here we were lost in the middle of the ocean and there she was, talking to the seal.

So I was going to let it all out and just yell at her, at how stupid this was, and how stupid
she
was, but then, just after I called
Ione
in my harshest tone, that seal turned and
barked at me
. It barked like a dog only much, much louder. So loud that Ione stopped crying for a moment and got that look on her face like she did when I'd gotten in trouble with Mum. Her eyes opened wide and she said, “Mum's mad at you, Cordie.”

And I know it sounds crazy, but when I looked over at the seal, she was looking right back at me with her unblinking black eyes.

“No, Ione, she is
not
mad at me,” I said calmly, the moist fog tasting salty on my tongue.

At least I hoped she wasn't.

 

Castle on the Sea

“
F
OLLOW HER.
Follow Mum,” Ione said.

I was about to refuse, even though I myself still had no idea which way to go, when the fog thinned a little and I saw the two large guardian rocks Mum had told us about. Ione saw them, too.

“Through those rocks, Cordie. We just have to follow Mum through the rocks and then we'll be able to see the island! We didn't even need the map!”

I felt a tickle of excitement in my belly. I pulled the starter and the
Dreaming Lass
came alive once more.

“Oh, I'm so proud of us! Aren't you proud of us, Mum?” Ione waited for the seal to answer, which of course she didn't. “Quick, Cordie. Let's go!”

The seal was a few meters in front of us now, and I didn't want to hit her with the boat.

“Move, seal! Get out of the way!” I cried.

Ione gave me a surprised shove. “Cordie, that was rude. You didn't even say
please
. Mum would be shocked at your bad manners. Besides, look, she's stopped and waiting for us. She wants us to follow.”

It was as if the seal looked over her shoulder.
Hurry up! Come on!

“Hold on to Neevy while I steer.”

Following the bobbing silver head of the seal, I motored us onward, hoping with all my heart that we'd make it to the island. It didn't have to be magical or anything, it didn't even have to have treasure, it just needed to have a shore and I'd be happy.

Between the rugged guardians we putted, the fog now only wisps of mist that made everything look mystical, which made me wonder if that's where the word came from. Then the island appeared, as if the sea were the sky and the land was rising from the clouds. Tall, spindly spires glistened, and giant stones of unusual shapes became clearer.

“It looks like a castle!” Ione cried.

In a way, she was right. If a castle had ever been built by a bunch of seals, it probably would have looked like this. Tumbly, raggedy, jumbled.

But still. There it was. We had found it.

I was so happy, so focused on the strange castle in front of me that I did not notice the upcoming reef. The boat jerked, followed by the most horrible scraping noise.

A wave came and rammed the
Dreaming Lass
against the rocks. Hard
.

“Geez, Cordie! A little warning would have been nice. I almost dropped Neevy.”

I tried not to panic. Dropping Neevy would have been the least of our problems. The fact was, the
Dreaming Lass
was now taking on water and I didn't know how much longer we could stay afloat.

“Ione, I don't want you to get scared, but I think we might have to swim for it. You're going to have to be brave.”

“I'm not the one afraid of the water, Cordie.”

I glared, though she wasn't looking at me any longer. And I wasn't afraid of the water. Water didn't make me barf. Waves made me barf. There was a difference.

“I'm going to try to get us as close as I can. But if the boat flips, hold on to the diaper bag. It has our food in it and we are going to need it. I'll hold Neevy and swim with her. And don't take off the life vest whatever you do.”

Ione nodded. The whites of her eyes were huge. For all of her brave talk, she was terrified again.

“Mum, keep us safe,” she whispered to the seal we could no longer see.

Yeah, Mum, don't let us drown.

The water was around our ankles in the boat when the motor gurgled to a stop. I saw the shadowy spires of the island growing bigger and bigger before I realized that although the motor had stopped, the boat itself had not.

“Cordie, look! Mum's helping!” Ione pointed behind us.

There was the seal, her nose to the left of the outboard motor, nudging our little boat along.

And I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything at all. I just stared with my mouth open like an idiot.

“Don't make her do all the work,” I said finally. “Help paddle!”

I reached beneath the seat to where two emergency oars were stowed. We paddled hard.

But despite our efforts, the
Dreaming Lass
sank just off the coast of the selkies' isle.

So we swam. Sort of. Once in the water, I could feel a solidness under my feet. “Just a little more, Ione, and you'll feel the bottom, too.” I held Neevy as far out of the water as I could manage. To the right of me, Ione dog-paddled, still holding the diaper bag until she, too, felt the sand beneath her shoes.

Neevy, who had been an angel through most of the trip, decided that since we were approaching land, she should have a nice, fat fit. But I didn't even care. No doubt she was hungry. We all were. I thought of the bread in the diaper bag, which would probably be soggy, and the cheese. Ugh, the cheese. My stomach started to growl, anyway.

The fog was still patchy and I could see the seal leading the way to a grayish beach, surrounded by tall rocks.

The seal turned and barked something.

It was a strange welcome to the Kingdom of the Selkies.

 

Reunion

T
HE ISLAND WAS SMALLER THAN
I thought it would be.

I could see how ships might have crashed against it, for it was like one moment it wasn't there, and the next it was. All around, except for the beach, the edges of rocks jutted out menacingly.

And it was quiet, but for the sea.

The beaches around Selkie Bay were rarely quiet during the season. They were loud with tourists, or noisy with seabirds squawking from the sky, claiming fish and trash from the water below.

But there were no sounds here on the island. Nothing except the sound of a baby screeching as her eight-year-old sister laid her on the sand and started to replace her wet dirty diaper with a wet clean one. And then there was the sound of the eight-year-old saying things she knew better than to say as she tried to get wet diaper tape to stick to a wet diaper. Also, there was the sound of me, combing through the diaper bag in search of an apple.

And nearby was the heavy, uneven breathing of the large black seal.

Ione carried Neevy over to me as I searched through our soggy things. In addition to damp diapers, we had some pretty beat-up bananas and a loaf of limp bread. The cheese was okay, and the water bottles were, too. Inside a zippered pocket was the sugar-jar money—sopping wet, but at least it wasn't at the bottom of the sea. As I took the shovels from the diaper bag, I found what I was looking for—the apples. I raised one high into the air in victory. At the sight of it, Neevy threw her arms around excitedly. At home, we called it the cookie dance. But since we didn't have cookies, Neevy would have to settle for apple. Pre-chewed apple. It might sound gross, and I felt like a mother bird, feeding chewed-up food to a baby, but she had to be fed and that was that.

Luckily, she seemed not to mind as I placed bits of mushed-up apple in her hand so she could put them in her mouth. Only once was the chunk too big and not chewed-up enough, but she quickly coughed it out.

“Don't you want an apple, Ione?” She must have been starving, too. Ione was always hungry. “Ione?” I called again when she didn't answer.

I turned around in time to see her kneel down over by where the silver-black seal had beached itself, midway up the shore. I could see her skinny legs trembling.

“Step back, Ione,” I whispered. “I think we should leave it alone for now.”

“It's not an
it
. It's a
she
. And
she
is Mum,” she whispered back. “And Mum is hurt. Right here.” She pointed to a spot between her chest and her left shoulder.

I looked past Ione to the seal's middle as it rose and fell. I didn't know how fast a seal was supposed to breathe, but the rhythm seemed kind of slow. But then, seals were used to holding their breath, so maybe this was normal.

But what wasn't normal was how this seal had showed up at the dock. Or how she had stayed with us during the fog. Or how she had used her nose to nudge us here—to the island of the selkies.

No, none of that was normal at all.

“Cordie,” Ione said, walking back toward me. “I think you should go and look at her. You're the oldest. She needs
you.
”

Ione, for all of her conviction about Mum being a seal, was scared and I knew it. It's one thing to think your mother has turned into a seal. It's quite another to be stranded with your seal-mum on an isle with no other grownups around.

I was scared, too.

But I knew it would be worse if I showed Ione my fear. And though Neevy was still only a baby, she could smell fear, I was sure. Probably all babies can smell fear. The last thing I needed was a double little-sister freak-out.

“Well, if you come and keep Neevy happy, I'll take a look at … her.”

Quickly, Ione skipped over to me and took Neevy from my arms.

“Now, take this and see if you can get Neevy to drink some water.” I handed Ione a bottle.

I started toward the seal. I didn't want to frighten it or have it jump at me or anything, so I thought it would be a good idea to talk to it as I walked.

“Um … seal? Hello there, seal.”

“Her name is
Mum
!” called Ione. Upon hearing the word
Mum,
the seal turned its head around and looked at me.

“See?”
Smug, smug Ione.

“Okay,
Mum
,” I began, still taking quiet steps toward where the seal lay. “I'd like to take a look at your, um, shoulder, I think that's what you call it. I am not going to hurt you.”